QCTF Starter: computer security for four or how we made a tournament for beginners in 19 cities simultaneously
UPD: link to online tournament online.qctf.ru
CTF competitions are familiar to many, even more people have heard about them at least once. About them here is well written. To participate in serious CTF tournaments, we need some training, but few know how and where to get it. We decided to fix it, namely - to hold mass computer security competitions for beginners. And they called them QCTF Starter. Perhaps for participants this will be the first step on the way to professional CTF tournaments.
QCTF Starter was held yesterday at sites throughout the country, and from Monday (10:00 am Moscow time) we will launch an online version based on the competition for those who could not join us offline. The link will appear on the site right before the start of the tour. We will definitely remind you about the beginning of the game, if you leave your coordinates here . We invite everyone to the online mirror.
')
This year we managed to do the almost impossible: to collect 208 teams in 19 cities at 22 sites. One was even located outside of Russia, in Minsk. But we are inexorable and we hope that next year there will be even more sites.
Thanks to enthusiasts who agreed to take on the organization of competitions in their cities, we were able to recruit such a large number of teams (QCTF Starter was the largest in-person CTF competition ever held in Russia). How we managed it and what happened in the end, read under the cut.
(The photo was taken by a QCTF Starter competition participant in Yekaterinburg)
CTF-competitions in Russia appeared only 10 years ago, they (at least, so far) do not have a rigid international centralization (main reference competition), such as, for example, ACM ICPC - the World Championship on sports programming, or well-defined rules that regulated would be most CTF tournaments. Now computer security competitions are growing rapidly and are no longer the lot of the chosen ones. Our input to this is the CTF Starter CTF competition for 800 people.
Who was the organizer?
Our friends are the Hackerd team - whom we have supported at competitions for more than a year, and we are the SKB Kontur Educational Programs. Hackerdom - known in Yekaterinburg and one of the coolest CTF teams in Russia, and now a real community of white hackers. A few years ago, the guys from it, for example, won the prestigious tournament in Paris. Twice. And now some of those winners are working in Contour. In parallel with their main work, the guys organize lectures, trainings and competitions for newly minted students and schoolchildren. For nearly ten years, guys from Hackerdom have been passing on traditions and experience to a new generation. QCTF Starter is one of the ways to train skills and promote competitions.
Why do we need QCTF?
We believe in universal good, a code without errors and that there will be more cool programmers if competitions for beginners take place in each city, and promising schoolchildren and students can participate in them.
We want more cool programmers, but it’s strange to call participants for competitions for pros - they only solve a couple of tasks from forty and leave disappointed. We needed some intermediate stage, which will show those who like to program that “computer security” is interesting, useful and even promising from the point of view of choosing a future profession. We are lucky that the guys from Hackerdom hold the same opinion, so two years ago we organized the first QCTF Starter for a small group of participants.
A year later, there were already four sites (Tomsk, Chelyabinsk and MIPT joined us), they were playing at the same time. This year we decided that four is, of course, good, but then more is possible! Fortunately, we were supported in many regions of our vast country. The results of the “support” turned out to be impressive, and the exact numbers are written above.
It seems that the idea of ​​safety competitions for beginners has successfully come up - we have found many new (for us) like-minded people.
(Picture taken at the site QCTF Starter in Tomsk)
How to make a site in your city?
We did not set special conditions, anyone could organize a site: on the basis of the building of the educational institution or other premises, if there is an audience with computers, where participants could sit, sockets (by itself) and stable Wi-Fi. Oh yeah, and the leadership of the university should be in accordance. With computers, things are a little more complicated. The team must provide two computers, but participants with personal laptops often do not need them. Another task of the organizers of the site is to print the diplomas to the winners, we, the organizers, were mainly engaged in their preparation.
In Yekaterinburg, the main site is located - the “headquarters” of the entire competition and the authors of the tasks (from Hackerdom and SKB Kontur). Tasks are common to all. They are partly taken from the internal competition of developers of SKB Kontur (why should we disappear :)), and are partly written by hacker-housemasters. It turned out quite nontrivially, the legend is the salvation of an expedition to Mars. We will not spoil, on Monday (10:00 Moscow time) an online tour starts - see for yourself. We invite everyone to it.
The sites started at different times (only 3 starts) - the scatter in time zones made it impossible to do this at the same time. This tickled the nerves of the participants and created intrigue: the team from Yekaterinburg, which completed its tour in 1st place, was displaced in half an hour by its closest rival from Moscow, other teams found themselves in the same position - waiting for how their place in the standings changed. Starting and finishing teams at different times are certain difficulties for the organizers. But here either the difficulty of simultaneous start with an inconvenient time for the site, or a different finish, but a comfortable time for each city. We chose the latter.
(Picture taken at the site in Innopolis)
QCTF Starter Summary
The results were summarized in two scenarios:
1. at each site
2. total for all teams
The final results of the competition are available on contest.qctf.ru/scores . The absolute winner was the team from Moscow (MSU), which decided 12 of the 14 tasks of the tournament. The teams, located from the second to the fifth place, decided on 11 tasks. Among them are two teams from Yekaterinburg (Ural Federal University), one from Perm (PGNIU) and another from Moscow (HSE).
Of the 208 teams, 153 were able to solve three or more tasks, and 191 at least for one task.
It seems to us that it turned out more than cool, at least much better than we imagined.
Unexpectedly, many teachers and students of universities and schools responded to the call to organize a competition in their city. And they did. Not everything and not all had time, so next year we have something to work on, and we have already begun to make a list of additional sites. Ready to add to it all who have the desire and strength to join the QCTF Starter, write to qctf@hackerdom.ru.
Do you know the options of something interesting and competitive for the same audience? Write in the comments or in PM, together more interesting!
CTF competitions are familiar to many, even more people have heard about them at least once. About them here is well written. To participate in serious CTF tournaments, we need some training, but few know how and where to get it. We decided to fix it, namely - to hold mass computer security competitions for beginners. And they called them QCTF Starter. Perhaps for participants this will be the first step on the way to professional CTF tournaments.
QCTF Starter was held yesterday at sites throughout the country, and from Monday (10:00 am Moscow time) we will launch an online version based on the competition for those who could not join us offline. The link will appear on the site right before the start of the tour. We will definitely remind you about the beginning of the game, if you leave your coordinates here . We invite everyone to the online mirror.
')
This year we managed to do the almost impossible: to collect 208 teams in 19 cities at 22 sites. One was even located outside of Russia, in Minsk. But we are inexorable and we hope that next year there will be even more sites.
Thanks to enthusiasts who agreed to take on the organization of competitions in their cities, we were able to recruit such a large number of teams (QCTF Starter was the largest in-person CTF competition ever held in Russia). How we managed it and what happened in the end, read under the cut.
(The photo was taken by a QCTF Starter competition participant in Yekaterinburg)
CTF-competitions in Russia appeared only 10 years ago, they (at least, so far) do not have a rigid international centralization (main reference competition), such as, for example, ACM ICPC - the World Championship on sports programming, or well-defined rules that regulated would be most CTF tournaments. Now computer security competitions are growing rapidly and are no longer the lot of the chosen ones. Our input to this is the CTF Starter CTF competition for 800 people.
Who was the organizer?
Our friends are the Hackerd team - whom we have supported at competitions for more than a year, and we are the SKB Kontur Educational Programs. Hackerdom - known in Yekaterinburg and one of the coolest CTF teams in Russia, and now a real community of white hackers. A few years ago, the guys from it, for example, won the prestigious tournament in Paris. Twice. And now some of those winners are working in Contour. In parallel with their main work, the guys organize lectures, trainings and competitions for newly minted students and schoolchildren. For nearly ten years, guys from Hackerdom have been passing on traditions and experience to a new generation. QCTF Starter is one of the ways to train skills and promote competitions.
Why do we need QCTF?
We believe in universal good, a code without errors and that there will be more cool programmers if competitions for beginners take place in each city, and promising schoolchildren and students can participate in them.
We want more cool programmers, but it’s strange to call participants for competitions for pros - they only solve a couple of tasks from forty and leave disappointed. We needed some intermediate stage, which will show those who like to program that “computer security” is interesting, useful and even promising from the point of view of choosing a future profession. We are lucky that the guys from Hackerdom hold the same opinion, so two years ago we organized the first QCTF Starter for a small group of participants.
A year later, there were already four sites (Tomsk, Chelyabinsk and MIPT joined us), they were playing at the same time. This year we decided that four is, of course, good, but then more is possible! Fortunately, we were supported in many regions of our vast country. The results of the “support” turned out to be impressive, and the exact numbers are written above.
It seems that the idea of ​​safety competitions for beginners has successfully come up - we have found many new (for us) like-minded people.
(Picture taken at the site QCTF Starter in Tomsk)
This is how the final list of sites of this year looks like:
1. Barnaul, Altai State Technical University. I.I.Polzunova
2. Vladimir, Vladimir State University
3. Ekaterinburg, Ural Federal University
4. Kazan, University Innopolis
5. Krasnoyarsk, Aerospace College of the Siberian State Aerospace University
6. Minsk, Belarus, Belarusian State University of Informatics and Radioelectronics
7. Moscow, Moscow State University of Information Technologies, Radio Engineering and Electronics
8. Moscow, Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (only for MIPT students)
9. Moscow, School 179
10. Moscow, Moscow State University, VMK
11. Nizhny Novgorod, Nizhny Novgorod State Technical University. R.E. Alekseeva (only for students of NSTU)
12. Omsk, Omsk State Technical University
13. Perm, Perm State National Research University
14. Petrozavodsk, Petrozavodsk State University
15. Samara, Samara State University
16. Samara, Volga State University of Telecommunications and Informatics
17. St. Petersburg, ZAO Lanit-Terkom
18. Taganrog, Southern Federal University
19. Tomsk, Tomsk State University
20. Tyumen, Tyumen State University
21. Chelyabinsk, Chelyabinsk State University
22. Yaroslavl, Yaroslavl State University. P.G. Demidov
2. Vladimir, Vladimir State University
3. Ekaterinburg, Ural Federal University
4. Kazan, University Innopolis
5. Krasnoyarsk, Aerospace College of the Siberian State Aerospace University
6. Minsk, Belarus, Belarusian State University of Informatics and Radioelectronics
7. Moscow, Moscow State University of Information Technologies, Radio Engineering and Electronics
8. Moscow, Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (only for MIPT students)
9. Moscow, School 179
10. Moscow, Moscow State University, VMK
11. Nizhny Novgorod, Nizhny Novgorod State Technical University. R.E. Alekseeva (only for students of NSTU)
12. Omsk, Omsk State Technical University
13. Perm, Perm State National Research University
14. Petrozavodsk, Petrozavodsk State University
15. Samara, Samara State University
16. Samara, Volga State University of Telecommunications and Informatics
17. St. Petersburg, ZAO Lanit-Terkom
18. Taganrog, Southern Federal University
19. Tomsk, Tomsk State University
20. Tyumen, Tyumen State University
21. Chelyabinsk, Chelyabinsk State University
22. Yaroslavl, Yaroslavl State University. P.G. Demidov
How to make a site in your city?
We did not set special conditions, anyone could organize a site: on the basis of the building of the educational institution or other premises, if there is an audience with computers, where participants could sit, sockets (by itself) and stable Wi-Fi. Oh yeah, and the leadership of the university should be in accordance. With computers, things are a little more complicated. The team must provide two computers, but participants with personal laptops often do not need them. Another task of the organizers of the site is to print the diplomas to the winners, we, the organizers, were mainly engaged in their preparation.
In Yekaterinburg, the main site is located - the “headquarters” of the entire competition and the authors of the tasks (from Hackerdom and SKB Kontur). Tasks are common to all. They are partly taken from the internal competition of developers of SKB Kontur (why should we disappear :)), and are partly written by hacker-housemasters. It turned out quite nontrivially, the legend is the salvation of an expedition to Mars. We will not spoil, on Monday (10:00 Moscow time) an online tour starts - see for yourself. We invite everyone to it.
The sites started at different times (only 3 starts) - the scatter in time zones made it impossible to do this at the same time. This tickled the nerves of the participants and created intrigue: the team from Yekaterinburg, which completed its tour in 1st place, was displaced in half an hour by its closest rival from Moscow, other teams found themselves in the same position - waiting for how their place in the standings changed. Starting and finishing teams at different times are certain difficulties for the organizers. But here either the difficulty of simultaneous start with an inconvenient time for the site, or a different finish, but a comfortable time for each city. We chose the latter.
(Picture taken at the site in Innopolis)
QCTF Starter Summary
The results were summarized in two scenarios:
1. at each site
2. total for all teams
The final results of the competition are available on contest.qctf.ru/scores . The absolute winner was the team from Moscow (MSU), which decided 12 of the 14 tasks of the tournament. The teams, located from the second to the fifth place, decided on 11 tasks. Among them are two teams from Yekaterinburg (Ural Federal University), one from Perm (PGNIU) and another from Moscow (HSE).
Of the 208 teams, 153 were able to solve three or more tasks, and 191 at least for one task.
It seems to us that it turned out more than cool, at least much better than we imagined.
Unexpectedly, many teachers and students of universities and schools responded to the call to organize a competition in their city. And they did. Not everything and not all had time, so next year we have something to work on, and we have already begun to make a list of additional sites. Ready to add to it all who have the desire and strength to join the QCTF Starter, write to qctf@hackerdom.ru.
Do you know the options of something interesting and competitive for the same audience? Write in the comments or in PM, together more interesting!
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/271909/
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